The 2022 Spanish F1 Grand Prix revived the golden age of the category in our country, with an influence that approached the historical records of the Montmeló circuit.
A total of 277,836 spectators gathered over the four days at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, 121,667 on Sunday for the race, a clear example of the revived interest of the Great Circus in our country.
Of those thousands and thousands of fans who attended the Spanish GP, many were attending an F1 race for the first time, and some disappointments they suffered at a logistical level have been recorded on social networks.
An F1 insider expressed criticism of the Circuit to a Motorsport.com writer, and we at Motorsport.com Spain have spoken directly to Circuit de Barcelona CEO Josep Lluís Santamaría .
” The truth is that the weekend has been a success with the great attendance of the public, which shows that Formula 1 is again of interest to the home public here”, celebrates Santamaría. “And also, with a race that we could say was one of the most spectacular that has been experienced here in recent years.”
Responding directly to the published information, the general director revealed that this Monday he received a letter from the president and CEO of Formula 1, Stefano Domenicali , in which he congratulates the Catalan track for the weekend, stresses the importance of the Spanish GP in the history of F1 and celebrates the passion that has been lived in the grand prix.
In the letter, the category also points out that there are things to work on together (circuit and F1) to continue improving and make the experience of fans who go to the circuit even better. In fact, Domenicali said that Formula 1 and the Circuit are going to discuss issues related to traffic and other minor matters to make the whole event weekend better.
” What was published in some media has nothing to do with what has reached us”, explains Josep Lluis, before admitting that there were indeed setbacks. “Yes, it is true that there have been failures that must be worked on and modified.”
The huge mass of fans, after two years of pandemic and others with fewer attendees, complicated everything: “We have had the third best turnout in the history of the grand prix. We have to work, as Domenicali says, to improve to give the best product to everyone.
Public transport problems in the 2022 Spanish GP of F1
Regarding one of the big problems, public transport, he declared: “ Renfe has reported that nearly 75,000 people have traveled on its trains this weekend in Catalonia, approximately 26% of the total number of attendees at the grand prize. That figure It is twice the number of people who arrived by train to Montmeló in 2019, in the grand prize before the pandemic.
“It is also necessary to highlight the reinforcement that Renfe made after Saturday, when there were problems and it took a long time to evacuate the Montmeló station, and for Sunday they increased the frequency and the number of trains. That day, the mayor of Montmeló told us that everything had gone quite well and that traffic flow had been achieved”.
“Regarding the issue of access, for many weeks we had been working with a special device to make access to the circuits as fluid as possible given the forecast of a large influx of public”.
One of the keys to the problems was the number of fans who gathered on Friday to watch free practice, much higher than in other years, and also higher than estimated.
Santamaría understands the discomfort and promises to work to make the future better: “On Friday there was a greater number of people than expected, 54,000 people came and managing these large numbers of people requires working on many issues and we are already working for the future both with traffic, as with mobility to give better service to all”
“We understand the discomfort of the spectators, some have not had problems because they have entered and exited well, but at some points there have been congestions that have lasted a long time. Afterwards, people start to get nervous and try to find a way out, thereby further collapsing any possible logical output there might be”.
Heat problems in the Spanish GP 2022 of F1
One of the aspects pointed out by Motorsport.com Spain after collecting the testimony of fans who attended the event was the lack of shaded areas, drinking water without having to pay high prices, and long queues at the sales stalls.
We directly conveyed this concern to the CEO, who insisted that they will improve the details for next year and recalled the situation that the world has been experiencing since 2020: “ The shadows are what there are, we have to work for the coming years, have more stands.”
“Then, we come out of a pandemic, there are things that cannot be done, such as spraying water for people to pass through, which would make people cool. That cannot be done because with it you could spread the virus more “.
And again the surprise arises at the amount of public that there was on Friday: “ The issue of water is true that on Friday a forecast of some 25,000 people had been made, exceeding the forecasts or the average of the last previous years. COVID, in which there were an average of 15,000 or 16,000 people. We calculated 25,000 and even so 54,000 came. The temperature on Friday was very high so there were considerable queues at some points. “
“We already acted on the same night from Friday to Saturday, opening 45 more points of sale than were planned for Sunday, and seven more, just for drinks, in areas where there had been more public.”
A novelty of the Circuit to combat the temperatures was allowing the public to put in as many bottles as they wanted: “ It should be noted that for the first time they were allowed to enter with refrigerators, with bottles of up to a liter and a half and the caps were not removed, which in sports facilities they always remove the cap. Metal bottles were not allowed.”
“On Sunday, ten more bars were set up with only drinks and 14 ice cream points of sale. An order was placed for more than 130,000 bottles of water, and some 80,000 bottles were kept cold. These data are about 3,350 cases of bottles of water … Saturday’s sale in terms of bottles of water was around 34,500 bottles and on Sunday they exceeded 60,000, so with all the forecast that was made there were still about 15,000 bottles of water left over.”
“It is possible -admits Santamaría- that at some point, some of the supply points may have lacked water, but then it was replenished throughout the day, and there were also other drinks”
And the lack of drinking water? “As for the circuit, we do not work with water from the public network, but it is from a well and it is not drinkable, and it is not so that people have to buy water, it is that it is not drinkable due to the toxic content it may contain. In the bathrooms they can be refreshed, but it is not water for consumption. Those are all the points that will have to be studied and seen how to improve.”
The temperature, the great enemy of the organization of the Spanish GP 2022
When asked if there was a lack of foresight when calculating the people who would go, Santamaría pointed to another cause of the problems: ” What we could not control were the temperatures, but in terms of public influx, these situations already occurred years ago, in fact we were in superior figures”.
“But this time the increase in the public has been added after so many years, because from 2008 until now the attendance of the public had dropped a lot, and this year everything was dimensioned for the people who had to come, but the temperature has gone in our against”.
These problems have caused many people to ask to change the date of the race, either to a weekend prior to May or to October, when summer is over: “You never know, now and for example here it rains and It’s cold. This should have happened two days before, and refresh Saturday with a downpour.”
“Perhaps if we changed the date it would be cold, it would rain and people would complain about bad weather. It is very difficult to do things to everyone’s liking. We have to do things to satisfy as many people as possible who come.”
Josep Lluís Santamaría pointed out that there were no major problems with the different fans, if perhaps a local fan was somewhat annoyed when they found themselves in a grandstand full of fans of a specific rider: “We always try to keep these groups separate, but as buying tickets is free and they can come through different points of sale, it may be that someone has had many fans from another side and has not felt comfortable”.
Changes to improve traffic and transportation for the future of the Spanish GP 2022 F1
The general director of the Circuit exposed the measures in which they are going to work for 2023 from now on.
” From Saturday to Sunday the number of buses and the frequency of trains was increased. We are going to work on giving priority to the event, because we can put many buses but if they cannot be moved, we are in the same situation.”
“We want there to be priority circulation in certain cases. Because if you have a planned frequency, they load, leave and have to come back, if there is no fluid traffic, it will take longer to transport people. We are going to look at that, and we are going to activate commuter stations where transfers can be made. For all this we are already having different meetings to improve”.
The future of Barcelona in Formula 1
With the increase in races in the United States and the Middle East , F1 has not assured the future of other historic venues, but the Spanish GP is assured of at least another four editions and Barcelona is confident that there will be many more.
“ We have a very good relationship with F1 and a contract until 2026. We are going to improve and what does not go well and we detect that we can improve, we are going to improve it. We have insurance until 2026, and in a couple of years we will begin to negotiate for the long term.
“We will look to sign another five-year period, because until last year we had one-year contracts and that is not ideal. As Stefano said in his letter, with the good relationship we have, between all of us we have to make the experiences are better and build F1 together. And that the Spanish GP has a place in the history of F1. We are very much in contact with F1 and we have a very good relationship”, he concluded.
